“ The Lack of Light is a novel that thrills you the kind you can't put down. Nino
Haratischwili grips you from the first page with an intensity that only great writers can
achieve.” —Armando Lucas Correa author of the internationally bestselling The German Girl
“Readers will find [ The Lack of Light ] irresistible.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A
thrilling heartbreaking unforgettable story. Not a page too long."— Kirkus Reviews (starred
review) A page-turning epic of loss and redemption in the vein of Rebecca Makkai’s The Great
Believers and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels about a group of four women who formed a deep
friendship in the turbulent years leading up to and after Georgia’s independence from the
Soviet Union. They are four as different as can be: the romantic Nene the clever outsider Ira
the idealistic Dina and the sensitive Keto. Inseparable since childhood they grow up together
in an old Tiblisi courtyard in Georgia at a time when the Soviet Union is crumbling and the
future of their country is in question. Each in her own way experiences love hope and
disappointment as local mob wars romance and civil war threaten to swallow up their worlds.
Rising to challenges both personal and political —a first love that can only blossom in secret
violent street skirmishes a ravaging drug epidemic—the four women’s friendship seems
indestructible until an unforgivable act of betrayal and a tragic death shatter their bond.
Decades later the three survivors reunite at a major retrospective of their late friend’s
photography. The pictures on display tell the story not only of their country but also of their
friendship and confronted by them Nene Ira and Keto relive their staggering loss. Then
unexpectedly something new is glimpsed and forgiveness seems within reach. Like the
International Booker Prize nominated The Eighth Life before it Nino Haratischwili’s The Lack
of Light is an emotionally bold decades-spanning epic in which to lose yourself brought to
life by the vibrant colors of Georgia's culture and its people. It is a glorious book readers
will return to again and again. Translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin
